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He closed his eyes. “You should run,” he thought at her. “It’s me they want. You still have a chance.”
“I will not leave you,” she replied fiercely.
He sighed. He’d had a feeling she was going to say that.
The spears were getting closer, and Archibald curled into himself, making as small a target as he could, hoping he’d fall between jabs. Pixie did the same, although she was much smaller and less conspicuous than his twenty-pound orange fluffy self.
They were on him now.
A spear jabbed through the brush and pierced his tail, pinning it to the earth. He tried to hold back a yowl of pain, but it was too much.
“Frankie!” he screamed, as agony shot through his body. He’d failed her, failed Pixie, failed the Guides of Frigg and Freyja, and now he was going to die filthy, covered in garbage and mud, fur matted and bloody with blackberry thorns, at the end of a spear wielded by a minion of Loki’s.
Consciousness started slipping away, but he willed himself to stay awake long enough to see Pixie’s fate.
Whether the spears had missed her, or they’d stopped looking once they’d found Archibald, he didn’t know, but she was safe for the time being.
He gave into the fear and pain, and let it pull him under.
Chapter Ten
Awareness returned slowly, and with it, the sound of metal against metal.
Archibald opened his eyes. The setting had changed little since he’d passed out. The steep bluff leading down to Swan Island was on his right, and Willamette Boulevard curved to his left.
His interest in his location paled compared to the battle raging in the middle of the street, though. Frankie fought the creatures who’d been hunting him. Several were already motionless on the ground, but there were still more than half a dozen surrounding her, and she was slowing down. She was holding her own at this point only because she was faster and her sword was better suited for close-in fighting.
Pixie must’ve gotten to the safe house after all. Hopefully, they’d bonded, and Frankie could draw on Pixie’s strength and vice versa.
As if his thoughts had conjured her, Pixie entered the fray in her human form. She relieved one body of a sword and sliced off the head of the creature who rushed at her.
The head sailed through the air and rolled to a stop at Archibald’s feet. The face was pockmarked, leathery, and pale. It had ear holes and nostril openings with no cartilage to form features and bulging, nearly colorless eyes. What its teeth lacked in quantity, they made up for in sharpness. Venomous fangs, Archibald amended, seeing a bead of liquid appear on the tip of a fang, then drop, sizzling, to the ground.
He’d never seen its like before, and although he’d dropped out of the academy, he’d excelled at both history—what a human might call mythology—and the biology of magical and supernatural beings. But this thing looked like an unholy amalgamation of a draugr, one of Tolkien’s goblins, and Nosferatu.
Archibald stood, wanting to get away from the severed head as quickly as possible. He braced himself for the inevitable wobble of muscles strained past endurance, but it didn’t come. Instead, a surge of strength ran through him, and some of the pain in his pierced and torn feet dissipated.
In front of him, Frankie stumbled and barely deflected a spear aimed at her midsection. Pixie spun around, hamstrung the offending monster, then danced back, disemboweling it when it sagged to the ground.
“Back-to-back!” she cried.
Frankie turned, sliced the legs of the one she was battling, then whipped her sword back around. The creature fell back out of range, but it was down for the count.
After that, Frankie and Pixie moved around the street in what almost looked like a dance.
Every time Frankie flagged, Archie held his breath, willing her to fight harder, to be stronger and faster. It worked—or at least it seemed to. Pixie must be sharing her energy, and as was true for all bonded Guides and the Valkyries, the energy shared increased for both, rather than depleted either.
Archibald was on his feet, pacing, tail whipping back and forth, as he watched the battle.
There were only a four more of the monsters left, and victory seemed all but assured.
Out of the corner of his eye, Archibald caught movement. Another creature crept out of the shadows of one of the enormous conifers that lined the street. It was cloaked in black and held a dagger at the ready.
Neither Frankie nor Pixie noticed it, too intent on their own fights.
“Noooo!” Archibald yelled. He launched himself at the monster, claws extended, and landed on its chest. He leapt off as the creature tumbled backward, then scrambled onto its face, raking his claws through the creature’s globular eyes. Jelly-like clumps erupted from the ruined sockets, and the creature screamed. It batted at Archibald, but he’d already darted away.
Frankie rushed forward, lopped off the head of Archibald’s victim, and smiled at him.
